Week 2 Noir readings summary

Last week we have done some reading and watched videos introducing us to noir. And I came to a conclusion that noir is a cinematic term used to describe Hollywood crime dramas. The attitudes in these types of movies are emphasizing ironic attitudes and sexual motivations. The tropes that begin to emerge after reading the novels The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain, The Wild Party Joseph Moncure, and the short story The Killers by Ernest Hemingway. The first two novels combine love and violent which is typical and known in noir cinema. Sexual motivations are imbedded as well in both of the novels where music and crime take place at the same time. They involve death description and some part might be realistic around that time but cannot say that is true for sure based in few stories. Even though this story come from actual life events but does not mean that they happen that often. The short story by Joseph Moncure, had very violent parts where he made “Max” convince the bar tender/waiter “bright boy” kill a guy as an oblige for a friend. He wants to kill someone he barely knows. The whole story is crazy but the story is very common on noir movies and so I expect it to be true.

The writing style is some how weird but I’m used to it since I read lots of old novels in public library in our area; but that does not change the fact that the way they name the characters is weird and they way they do the dialogs are disturbing on some of them and hard to follow a bit. What stands out about these stories, they don’t just tell you the story but they include the pictures between parts which keeps the reader engaged and help visualize the moments in the story.

#noirreadings